but in their ornaments the feathers of Paradise birds
were seen, showing, as might be expected,
that these birds range far in this direction,
and probably all over New
Guinea.
It is curious that a rudimental love
of art should co-exist with such a very
low state of civilization. The people of
Dorey are great carvers and painters.
The outsides of the houses, wherever
there is a plank, are covered with rude
yet characteristic figures. The highpeaked
prows of their boats are ornamented
with masses of open filagree
work, cut out of solid blocks of wood,
and often of very tasteful design. As a
figuTe-head, or pinnacle, there is often a
human figure, with a head of cassowary
feathers to imitate the Papuan “mop.”
The floats of their fishing-lines, the
wooden beaters used in tempering the
clay for their pottery, their tobacco-
boxes, and other household articles, are
covered with carving of tasteful and
often elegant design. .Did we not already
1
now that such taste and skill are compatible with utter
barbarism, we could hardly believe that the same people
are, in other matters, utterly wanting in all sense
of order, comfort, or decency. Yet such is the case.
They live in the most miserable, crazy, and filthy hovels,
which are utterly destitute of anything that can be called
furniture ; not a stool, or bench, or board is seen in them,
no brush seems to be known, and the clothes they wear are
often filthy bark, or rags, or sacking. Along the paths
where they daily pass to and from their provision grounds,
not an overhanging bough or straggling briar ever seems to
be cut, so that you have to brush through a rank vegetation,
creep under fallen trees and spiny creepers, and wade
through pools of mud and mire, which cannot dry up because
the sun is not allowed to penetrate. Their food is
almost wholly roots and vegetables, with fish or game only
as an occasional luxury, and they are consequently very
subject to various skin diseases, the children especially
being often miserable-looking objects, blotched all over
with eruptions and sores. If these people are not
savages, where shall we find any? Yet they have all
a decided love for the fine arts, and spend their
leisure time in executing works whose good taste and
elegance would often be admired in our schools of
design !
During the latter part of my stay in New Guinea the
weather was very wet, my only shooter was ill, and birds